// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did the Tenharim language say? It's tense.
| Tenharim | |
|---|---|
| Tenharin | |
| Native to | Brazil |
| Region | Mato Grosso and Rondônia |
| Ethnicity | Tenharim |
Native speakers | 350 (2024)[1] |
Tupian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | pah |
| Glottolog | nucl1663 |
| ELP | Tenharín |
 Tenharim is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.[2] | |
Tenharim (Tenharin) is one of the dialects of the Kawahíva language, one of the Tupian languages and spoken in western Brazil by the Tenharim. It is the only remaining dialect still transmitted to children.[1][3]
Geographical distribution
[edit]The Tenharim reside in three Indigenous territories (TIs), Tenharim/Marmelos, Tenharim of Igarapé Preto and Sepoti, within the village of Marmelos, Vila Nova, Bela Vista, Tracoá, Campinho, Taboca, Mafuí, Castanheira Jacuí, Pakyri, and Caranaí.[1] Only in Tenharim Marmelos is the language being learned by children as a first language, who attend school and are educated in the Tenharim language; this approach has been described as "successful",[3] though education in Tenharim is restricted to elementary school.[1]
History
[edit]Language contact
[edit]Along with Nheengatu, Tenharim has been proposed to be the source of personal pronouns in the Pirahã language. The idea that Pirahã borrowed its pronoun system from a Tupian language was first brought forward by Brazilian linguist Aryon Rodrigues.[4]
| gloss | Pirahã | Tenharim[a] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phonemic | Phonetic | Phonetic | |
| first person | /ti/ | [t͡ʃi] | [d͡ʒi] |
| second person | /gi/, /gia/ | [nɪ], [nɪʔa] | [nde], [ne] |
| third person | /hi/[b] | [hɪ] | [ahe] 'people', 'person now dead' |
| third person feminine | /ʔi/[c] | [hea] | |
| third person non-human | /ʔis/[c] | ||
Documentation
[edit]Tenharim, along with other dialects of Kawahíva, was documented by Helen Pease and LaVera Betts, missionaries with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) from the 1960s to the 1980s. The two produced a pandialectal dictionary of Kawahíva, as well as a number of texts, mainly in Tenharim.[1]
Phonology
[edit]Consonants
[edit]| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | labial | |||||
| Obstruent | p | t | t͡ʃ | k | kʷ | ʔ |
| Fricative | h | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ŋʷ | |
| Approximant | ʋ | ɾ | j | w | ||
Vowels
[edit]| Front | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | |||||
| oral | nasal | oral | nasal | oral | nasal | |
| High | i | ĩ | ɨ | ɨ̃ | u | ũ |
| Non-high | e | ẽ | a | ã | o | õ |
Notes
[edit]- ↑ Pronouns given are in free form and in the ergative case
- ↑ Masculine reference occurs with this pronoun when contrasted with /ʔi/
- 1 2 Pronoun not used in isolation
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 Nascimento dos Santos, Wesley (2024). Topics on the syntax of Kawahíva: A Tupí-Guaraní language from the Brazilian Amazon (Thesis). UC Berkeley.
- ↑ Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010.
- 1 2 Nascimento dos Santos, Wesley (2024-09-18). "Kawahíva (Brazil) – Language Snapshot". Language Documentation and Description Volume 24 Issue 1 2024. doi:10.25894/LDD.2549. ISSN 2756-1224.
- 1 2 Thomason, Sarah G.; Everett, Daniel L. (2001-06-22). "Pronoun Borrowing". Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. 27 (1): 301. doi:10.3765/bls.v27i1.1107. ISSN 2377-1666.
- 1 2 Marçoli, Osmar (2018-03-23). Estudo comparativo dos dialetos da língua Kawahib (Tupi-Guarani) Tenharim, Jiahui e Amondawa (Mestre em Linguística thesis) (in Portuguese). Campinas, SP: Universidade Estadual de Campinas. doi:10.47749/t/unicamp.2018.1020711.